They Shed a Little Light : Vigil Aims to Ensure Vietnamese Refugees Are Not Forgotten

In solidarity with Vietnamese refugees who face forcible return to their homeland, about 5,000 demonstrators gathered Wednesday night outside Westminster City Hall for a stirring candlelight vigil.

“I want to help out because my parents were refugees, and if they hadn’t received help I would be in the same situation,” said 20-year-old Francis Bui, a Cypress College student who joined thousands of Vietnamese Americans at the three-hour vigil. “I want these people to have the same chance for freedom and education that I’ve had.”

Organizers of the vigil, which was held in conjunction with vigils in Dallas, Houston and San Jose, said they hoped to alert Americans to the plight of 31,000 Vietnamese refugees now in refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia.

Under a 1989 plan, the camps will be closed Sunday, the refugees shipped back to Vietnam. Though many refugees fear persecution from the Vietnamese government, United Nations officials who run the camps consider them economic migrants, not political asylum seekers.

“There was a lot of media coverage in the late ‘80s, but there is no coverage now,” said Jaclyn Fabre, executive director of the Westminster-based Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers, one of 20 groups that helped organize the vigil. “Many people don’t know that there are still people in the camps. We want to bring this to the American public. For them, the war ended in April 1975, but for many Vietnamese the tragedy still goes on.”

While working as a volunteer in a Thailand camp, Fabre said, she witnessed widespread terror and brutality.

“I’ve spoken to these people,” she said. “They’re scared. They don’t know what is going on. It’s a really, really horrendous treatment these people are put through on a monthly basis.”

Most people at the vigil didn’t need to be told about camp conditions. As survivors themselves, they understood what the 31,000 who face imminent repatriation must be feeling.

“I remember myself as a Vietnamese refugee,” said 39-year-old Tan Nguyen of Garden Grove. “I came by boat too. This is the last chance for 30,000 people . . . They risked their lives for freedom. Can you imagine if they had to return?”

“I know what it’s like,” said 12-year-old Hal Huynh of Garden Grove, who spent three years in a Malaysian camp, where he routinely fought for food and suffered mistreatment at the hands of the guards. “When they [return to Vietnam], they’ll have nothing.”

Tu Van Nguyen, a 62-year-old Stanton resident who lived in a Thailand camp for 15 months, said refugees were forced to subsist on two cans of fish and two kilograms of rice weekly. And “we were scared. We were on the border, and people were fighting on both sides.”

In addition to holding candles aloft and listening to speakers, many at Wednesday’s vigil sang and prayed, while some stared at photos of the camps.

Hanh Tran, a 25-year-old New Yorker visiting Southern California, said she was deeply moved by one photo in particular, taken in a Hong Kong camp: Written in human blood on a large sheet were the words, “We would rather die than go back to Vietnam.”

“The United States has successfully resettled 1.2 million Vietnamese since 1975,” cried Dick Kazan, a local businessman addressing the crowd. “Why can’t America find room for just 30,000 more, and in so doing find an honorable end to the Vietnam War?”

Many at the vigil were American-born, unfamiliar with refugee camps and too young to remember the Vietnam War. Their presence clearly moved the older participants.

“The young people involved really stir a lot of emotions to the older generation,” Fabre said. “A lot of older people are genuinely touched because they see these kids, some of whom were born in the United States, have a lot of compassion and concern for Vietnamese.”

Binh Nguyen, a 21-year-old UC Irvine student, said he worried that the vigil would be too little, too late.

“If this had happened two months ago, it would be a whole lot better,” he said.